The Bicycle Thief
by ikilledkennyandjr
Summary: [Ensemble, AngelaBrian, AngelaJordan] It is a theme written into every human's heart, but not our brains. The desire to escape. But can we ever really leave the places we so desperately want to?


**DISCLAIMER: My So-Called Life is owned by the Bedford Falls Production Company. No profit to be made here; it's just for fun.**

**Characters: Ensemble  
Pairings: Angela/Brian, Angela/Jordan, possibly more  
Genres: Drama, Angst, Romance  
Rating: PG/PG-13  
Word count: 2215  
**

**Spoilers for the end of the series.**

**Author's Note: Warning! Angela/Brian is the main pairing in this chaptered fic. Sorry to all you Jordan fans (there will be lots of him, too), but Krakow should get the girl once in a while, right? ;)**

_**Beta read by the wonderful LaLaGirl33! **_

**Chapter One: The Street, The Bike, The Boy**

---

Angela has everything she wants, right here in this car. Or, put more accurately, she _should _have everything she wants.

For one thing, the enigmatic and completely unobtainable Jordan Catalano has somehow been obtained. He's driving them to "this little place I know" and sending her coy little looks, his hair-that's-soft-in-the-back falling artfully into his eyes. She still relishes the thought of capturing his attention, even for a second--which is usually all it amounts to anyway. She lives for it, even.

She remembers the way he called her name tonight, after Brian, and the way he smiled when he greeted her. That serene smile, telling her 'Everything is okay, just come with me.' His breath, God, his breath, so warm against her skin in the January air when he stood in front of her. She thinks it's that warmth that made her walk out of the snowy street and into Jordan's car.

No. It's not that. It's the way he said, "Don't worry, your mom said it's okay," in that... voice. That 'Hopefully I impressed your mother' voice. She can't believe how he can say so little and mean so much. How he just waltzed into her house and spoke actual words to her mother, when he hardly speaks to anyone. The thought of him sitting at her kitchen table assuring her mom he doesn't mean any harm makes her smile and giggle, and then he looks at her again and spontaneously rests his arm across the back of her seat.

She has everything she wants. She has everything, period. And yet...

And yet what? Why can't she be not just happy, but ecstatic, with no other thoughts than how it feels to be the centre of his world for however long he chooses to indulge her? Nothing's changed, after all; she's still in love with him, fully taken over by him. Even if he didn't write the letter. Even if, not only did Brian write the letter, but he wrote to express his feelings for her. Who cares about a stupid letter?

No, she reminds herself immediately, it's not a stupid letter. It's the most beautiful letter she's ever read, ever even dreamed about. And Jordan Catalano didn't write it; Brian Krakow did. The same Brian Krakow she's known practically all her life, the one that, at points in time, she wasn't even sure had feelings.

But she'll never think that way again.

The car lurches to a halt and she is brought back to the present, turning to watch Jordan cut the engine. For a minute, Jordan leans his head against the seat, as though spent from a long, confusing day--she knows she most certainly is. His eyes are not on her, but on the scenery outside the wind shield, and she follows his gaze. Her breath catches. The car is sitting on a small cliff overlooking the frozen river, the distant city lights travelling across the ice. As she turns to look out her window, she sees another car at the other side of the sand lot, although she can't make out the passengers.

"Jordan, this is beautiful," she says, tucking a stray hair behind her ear.

He grins and replies with a flirty, "Yeah?" and her breath hitches again at the scenery before her; of Jordan this time. Has he brought any other girls here? It doesn't matter, nothing matters now that she's in his car and he's staring at her with those eyes. The sun could crash into the earth and she wouldn't care, so long as the last thing she ever sees is Jordan Catalano's eyes.

Before she can fully appreciate him and this and everything it means, he leans over and catches her lips in an urgent kiss. Urgent... that's how Jordan Catalano always kisses. As though every second is precious and there's no time to waste. As though kissing her is so important it consumes him. She can already feel it consuming her and the thought gives her this incredible intoxication. She is Jordan-drunk. And just like that, all other thoughts are swept from her awareness and tucked into some dusty, dark corner.

But over time they creep back in one-by-one. Strange little thoughts whose collective sole purpose is to ruin her mood yet again. Like Rayanne, manipulating her, telling her she lost nothing--a lousy friend, a boy that wasn't hers--but that Rayanne lost everything. Like Sharon's voice in her head, constantly insulting Jordan and telling her she could do "like, sooo much better". Like Rickie telling her Brian wrote the letter.

Like Brian, small and alone on the street when she drives off with Jordan. She still sees him, in her mind's eye, and remembers looking at him through the rear-view mirror until they turned a corner and he disappeared.

It's not that thought that makes her sober up and push Jordan away, nor is it any thought involving Rayanne (surprisingly enough). It is when she recalls Brian's figure in the mirror, and how he never once moved. How he stayed there on that bike, on their street, haunting her and being haunted at the same time. How, for all she knows, he could still be there. That's what makes her push Jordan off her and gaze again at the other car in their make out point.

"What?" he says, and she can't tell if he's angry or sad or confused. She can't tell what she is either, so she lets it drop and musters up the will to speak. But when she finally does, it's so sudden it shocks her.

"Do you have a pen?" So quiet she hardly believes what she's saying is real.

"Huh?"

"Can you write me another letter?" And she turns and stares him directly into the seat, not mad but challenging. She wants to see how far he'll go, even while another part of her wishes to shrivel up and be erased from this world. Permanently.

Jordan raises his head a bit, squints at her like she's a phonics book, gulps and finally runs a hand through his hair. She drinks in every motion until her eyes burn. "I--" He stops at the fourth syllable he's said in half an hour. "I, I can't. I mean, not here."

Angela wants to soften when he turns away; she'd do anything to keep those blue, blue eyes locked on her for as long as possible. And his hurt is... it's the absence of water, or air, or sweetly dreaming sleep. "You're right, you can't." But then again, she needs to see this through. She raises her voice so far it risks cracking: "You can't because you never could. You couldn't, like, express yourself so you got Brian Krakow to do the work for you... And you never told me." She says the last sentence so quietly and almost cries, both from the sheer force of her words and the situation they've wound up in. Somehow, though, she holds on.

And it's Jordan's turn to crumple--although of course he doesn't cry. Angela isn't too sure if Jordan Catalano's ever cried, like in his life. He lashes out instead. "Look, Brain, like, wrote it by himself; I didn't force him or anything. And I _tried _to tell you, you just wouldn't listen. You wanted to believe... I'm not sure what you wanted. I didn't want to take that away from you or whatever--"

"Oh, you didn't want to take it away from me? Like it was some big sacrifice? I can't believe this!" She watches angrily as he grinds his teeth and rests his arms on the steering wheel, not so much as glancing at her. "Is this some kind of sick joke?!"

"It's not a joke." His voice is low, controlled, and it scares her a bit. "It never was." Then his demeanour changes and suddenly he's resting his head against the steering wheel, looking so fragile. Her heart is stranded in the middle of the desert. She has to rub her hand up to his shoulder, in the hopes that the water she sees in the distance isn't a mirage.

"Jordan, I--I'm sorry." She sighs and can feel him follow suit. "I just, it reminded me of that song you played for me, like, a few months ago? Well, Rickie told me later you, like, wrote it about your car." She squints for a millisecond, a defence mechanism that he must be very familiar with by now--even though he can't even see it.

Raising his head, his body to sit upright, he makes his furrowed brows prominent. "So?"

"So... I mean, you invited me to this loft and played this song for me." She punctuates 'played' with a nervous laugh. "I mean, obviously I'm gonna think you wrote the song... like, about me." God, she can't believe how stupid that must sound. He must really think she's a twit. How many times has she said something completely idiotic to him? The number must be in the thousands.

Then again, how many times has she dropped her concerns, so quickly, just to please him again?

While she's working out that number, Jordan's working out whatever goes on in his head, and she wishes so desperately to know exactly what that is. "Well, I mean... I didn't even really know you back then, so... I mean, I was," he struggles to find the word, "interested or whatever, but..."

A silence follows; not because she's outraged at the words but because she realizes how true they are. He _didn't _know her. And it's not even enough that he was interested in her ("or whatever"), because it turns out that she didn't know him either. Even if she claimed to herself that it was "love at first sight". Even if she still claims she loves him. Is it true? It has to be; she can't do anything but stare at him. A better question would be: does she want it to be true?

He's a stranger--a stranger she might just be madly in love with, but still a stranger. How much does she know about him, really? How far would he go for her?

God, here she is, and she's left Brian Krakow all alone on that street--the Brian Krakow she's always known, the Brian Krakow who wrote that letter for her, the Brian Krakow who... wait. Why is she thinking about him, of all people?

She doesn't know, but she still left him to be driven to a make out point by someone she doesn't know either. By someone she's not sure if she loves. Though she's certainly kidding herself if she thinks she's completely soul bound to Brian. And at least she's sure she doesn't love him, or even like him all that much at times.

...Because she would know. If she did.

Jordan is waiting, waiting on her instead of the other way around, for once. She should be down on her knees, thanking the Gods. But all she can say is, "I'm tired. Can you take me home?"

He opens his mouth, closes it, and stares at her long enough for the ice to melt and spring to bloom. Then he shrugs it off. "Lemme just have a smoke first." She's positive he uses the least amount of words on purpose, to slowly kill her. But she nods anyway--what else can she do?

She can watch, and so she does. Watches as he gets out of the car--the same car that he and Rayanne Graff had sex in--closes the door, leans perfectly on its body, lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag, looking pensively to the sky. All of a sudden, she hears the purr of a car starting up and swivels her head in time to see the other couple leaving the lot. She notices now how cold it is with the engine off and wonders why she hasn't felt the night chill seeping in before. And so she pulls her coat tighter around her, protectively, as though it'll shield her from everything. With her breath on a line, she waits.

The dimness of her mind wonders if Brian is still on his bike. She pictures riding that bicycle down a hill like she did after breaking up with Jordan, her arms spread out, ready to fly. Maybe the reason she was so happy that day was because she rode Brian's bike instead of sitting in Jordan's car, waiting for him to drive her home.

Because instead of sitting there like an idiot, she escaped... she drove herself.

---

**A/N: The second chapter will be longer and involve other characters; think of this as sort of a prologue. So, comments? Criticisms? I'd love to know what you think!  
**

**--Kenny**


End file.
